The United Nations is bringing $500,000 in emergency food aid to 30,000 Colombians after a volcanic eruption caused massive flooding and avalanches in the northern and western parts of the South American nation.

A group of independent United Nations human rights experts have welcomed United States President-elect Barack Obama’s announced decision close the Guantánamo Bay detention centre, stressing it will end “a dark chapter in the country’s history.”

After six years of strong performance, Latin American and Caribbean economies will slow considerably next year as the global economic meltdown takes its toll on the region and unemployment rises, a United Nations agency for economic development announced today.

An independent United Nations human rights expert has praised the Nicaraguan Government for giving the indigenous Awas Tingni community the title to its traditional lands, marking the culmination of a decades-long struggle by the group to gain recognition and protection of its ancestral territory.

Nearly 50,000 Colombian refugees are expected to benefit from the Ecuadorian Government’s nationwide registration scheme, which aims to recognize and document refugees who have been in the country for more than a year, the United Nations said today.

Almost half of the families uprooted by what the United Nations emergency relief chief had called the “worst disaster in the last 100 years” to strike Haiti are still unable to return to their homes, a UN spokesperson told reporters today.

Haitians beset by a staggering rise in acts of banditry, including kidnapping, are set to benefit from a new United Nations-backed urban security plan launched by the national police, including an increased presence and nighttime patrols.

United Nations humanitarian agencies have stepped up their assistance in Panama, where at least 10 people have been killed and nearly 24,000 others affected by floods and heavy rains and the number of affected areas continues to grow.